


A Game

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Mind Games, One Shot, Season/Series 02-03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-19
Updated: 2007-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg plays a game that he thinks he can't lose at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game

**Author's Note:**

> Set throughout the Stacy arc in seasons 2 and three. Canon as far as the actions go. The reasoning behind the actions, however, is very House/Wilson.

It started out as a game. I wanted to make Wilson jealous. Ever since I covered that diagnostics class, James had been ignoring me. The only times we talked, James would just harp on me about how much I apparently loved Stacy. I admit, at first, I was a bit confused. I wasn't sure about my feelings. Maybe I did love her. Maybe I did hate her. Maybe I was still angry. Maybe none of those things. And what Wilson and Stacy were saying wasn't helping.

Ironically, it was one of these arguments with Wilson that made it clear. I called him to a bar one night, to talk about Mark's latest labs. I told him - actually it was the first time I ever said it out loud - I told him that I wasn't sure if I wanted Stacy, or if I wanted her to hurt. Afterwards I couldn't even believe that I said it. I blame the booze.

After James left the bar, I got absolutely hammered. I thought a lot about what I had been feeling for the last five years. Most of my anger was gone. I wouldn't say that I didn't love Stacy at all any more, but she was no longer the be all and end all of my heart. I loved someone else - I loved him more than I had loved her. I mussed her friendship, yes, and I missed the closeness and easiness we had before, but I didn't want her back. She said it herself - she wouldn't give up Mark. And I wouldn't give up James.

I finally knew how I felt. But James didn't. James, who knew me better than anyone else ever had, didn't know now. He knew what we had shared, what we had discovered in one another, but he still insisted that I loved Stacy.

Then Cuddy offered Stacy the job here, and I saw a chance. I could get closer to Stacy again, and maybe provoke James into being less obtuse. And it worked, sort of. Stacy and I became closer, like we had been before. Lying on the floor of her attic, catching Steve McQueen, talking, joking - it was just like old times. Objective one was a success. But James was a different matter. He never flew into a fit of jealous rage and demand I stop seeing Stacy. He even started encouraging me.

I didn't want encouragement! I didn't want to steal Stacy completely away from Mark. I wanted my Jimmy back, but he was pulling away from me. And Baltimore. I'm not even sure what happened then. We were friendly, we were flirting, we were having fun. And we kissed. I didn't even start to think until the phone rang, and then it was all about the case.

And the next case. And the next. And one night I walked her to her car, and she… offered. I'd like to say it was a pragmatic decision - she wasn't getting any with Mark, I wasn't getting any with James. Neither of us had any intention of making this permanent. And we used to be good together. I'd like to say that I thought it all out, logically, and came to the conclusion to go ahead. But I didn't think all of that. I didn't think at all. I just did.

Afterwards, when we were lying together, I thought it all through, and I decided that I was okay with what had just happened. And Stacy seemed pretty okay with it too.

Too okay with it, apparently. She changed the rules of my game. She decided to leave Mark and stay with me, and I honestly never saw that coming. I never expected Stacy to leave Mark in rehab. Even though, as James said, she did leave me. But she hurt me in a way she never hurt Mark - she _saved_ him. I mean, on some level, I expected Stacy to leave me. I was furious with her and didn't even try to hide it.

But Mark - Mark still loved her. He was irrationally afraid that Stacy might him, but that was irrational. She would never do that. I knew she would never leave Mark fro me. It was all just friendly flirtation.

But apparently I was the only one who got that memo. Stacy chose me, and James approved. So I had to tell her no. I had to refuse. I wouldn't give up Jimmy for her, even if I was the only one who knew that that choice was being made.

And now Stacy - my friend - is gone, and Jimmy is even more distant than before. It wasn't supposed to go this way. It was supposed to make everything better.

It was supposed to be a game.


End file.
